Barcelona

I had actually spent the previous day not enjoying Florence but instead freaking out. We had received an email from RyanAir (an airline who I would equate to some unnatural form of evil) saying that protests in Spain may possibly cancel our flight but we could reschedule for free with their call center. I called said call center about 100 times whilst sitting in a small phone booth in an Indian Call Center in Florence. With no luck we decided to leave Florence early to try and get on the night flight to Barcelona from Rome. After a train ride through Flooded Tuscany and no luck at the airport we ended up back staying with people we knew in Rome until the next morning when our flight did miraculously take off without event.

However, the strike did mean that when we arrived in Barcelona we entered a strange ghost town of an airport and we were greeted at our hostel with the words "Welcome to the worst day to be in Barcelona." Regardless Barcelona is too wonderful not to have a good time and we got some (amazing) Paella before making our way to the main protest for the day. The energy at the protest wasn't anger so much as it was commitment to an understanding that something was wrong with the system. The strikes were set off by austerity measures called by the EU to deal with Spain's debt. We ate the free hostel dinner, sat on a rooftop terrace drinking cheap wine, and went to bed exhausted.

The next day was a wanderlusting rambling through the world of Antoni Gaudi as we made our way about Barcelona. We started off by going to Parc Guell up on the north side of Barcelona. It's a beautiful park designed by Gaudi so his patrons could live happily in the beauty overlooking the city.

This is a better picture of the Gaudi house that is in the foreground of this photo.

From there we continued our tour of Modernismé architecture in Barcelona by heading down to this very interesting looking hospital that wasn't too far away. 

Just down the road from that hospital is Gaudi's unfinished masterpiece, La Sagrada Familia. 

This church has been under construction for over 100 years and is a testament to both Gaudi's genius and the immense adoration that the city of Barcelona has for his work. The church construction has been funded by donations over the past century and will hopefully be completed by 2025. Their is something immensely fanciful about the entire design and story of this building that gives it a certain magical air as you stand in front of it. 

The next day I spent a few quality hours marveling at a house Gaudi designed called Casa Battlo. Entering Casa Battlo was like being in a dream but not even in my own dream, it was Gaudi's dream, a fanciful place that I could not even begin to imagine. The curves and a strange designs that appeared throughout the home gave it a marvelous feeling of the house having somehow grown out of the ground into this magnificent monument of bright and colorful beauty. 

This is the front facade of marvelous, dream-like, Casa Battlo

And here you can see out the large front windows onto the street

This doorway is a good example of the complete and utter lack of any right angle above the floor. Gaudi's love for natural contours makes the space comfortable and strange simultaneously. This place was certainly my favorite in Barcelona. From there I spent most of my time the next day or so rambling and wandering about Barcelona with my friends and alone just trying to take in the winding tiny streets of the Raval and Barceloneta. 

Barcelona had this beautiful happy energy that I can only assume blows in off the sea. That inherent happiness alongside the excellent food and my love of Spanish will surely send me back to sunny Barcelona soon enough. 

Rome and Florence

Noah and I arrived in Rome without incident. We made our way to the apartment of some people from UChicago who we were staying with and then went out for an excellent dinner at a family owned restaurant in the Trastavere followed by gelato and a long walk through the ambling streets of Rome.

The next morning began early as we made a concentrated effort to see the entirety of Rome. I began the day by spilling a cappuccino all ober the counter of a small italian cafe much to the confusion of the rest of the patrons. After escaping with the remnants of my cappuccino and a donut in hand we started off through the city. Our first stop was the Vatican City, which due to the masses of tourists seemed more like a Catholic Disneyland than a holy site. But bobbleheads of the Pope aside, it was a beautiful place.

After that we made our way across the city to the Spanish steps

There was a beautiful park behind the Spanish Steps that gave a wonderful view over all of Rome. 

After meandering around this park and managing to get somewhat lost we continued careening through the rest of Rome with stops at the Pantheon, Coliseum and other classic Roman sites. We made a pre-dinner foray to have this great café drink called a Mochella which was somewhere between a cappuccino, a hot chocolate, and dessert. For dinner we decided to make an adventure of it and went to two different excellent pizzerias. We split a pizza which had crust that was a cross between mazza and glory at the first establishment. At the next place (that we reached after getting lost in the Trastavere for a bit) I had a pizza that lacked any cheese but did have some great anchovies. The day ended as any good thing does, with gelato. Well we also ended up wandering through a strange part of north Rome looking for a hostel but that's besides the point. 

After a bullet train ride we arrived in Florence. Florence is medieval where Rome is ancient and it shows. The churches in Florence were beautiful. We went in both the Duomo and Santa Croce. The picture below is from the top of the dome of the Duomo which gave a fantastic view of the city even though it was raining a bit. Florence has wonderful street markets and possibly better yet are the streets themselves. After going through what I referred to as 'the gauntlet of samples,' where I procured an excellent tuscan salami that I ate through for the rest of the trip, we continued to wander florence. 

The two nights I was in Florence I spent them wandering the streets and drinking wine while talking with a friend. It was perfect. Florence at night is a wonderful thing and I don't think that many places do it as well. Chianti is the specialty wine of Florence and there it tastes just on the border of where the sharpness of the flavor could be bad if it was any thicker but instead it hovers next to excellence. 

However, the sunset in Florence isn't half bad either.

Weekending in Paris

I spent the past two weekends in Paris. It was beautiful. I was exceptionally happy. But most importantly it tasted amazing. I literally can't describe how delicious Paris was, but I digress.

The first weekend my friend Noah joined me as we headed off to stay with our two good friends Emily and Janet. However, as we waited for our bus to the airport to come things began to go wrong. First, the bus we had got tickets for didn't come. Then the next bus showed up 25 minutes later but the driver said he was doen for the day. Finally when a bus did show up it was 5:05 pm and our 7 p.m. flight wasn't looking so hopeful even after we negotiated our way on to the bus. This was because we were flying out of a cheap regional airport called Luton which is about an hour outside of London. But at this point that hour long drive was going to be at least an extra 30 minutes because of the rush hour traffic. When we did arrive at Luton it was 6:43. We had already been told by easyjet that we'd need to be at the airport at least 30 minutes before takeoff and that there were no other flights that night. After frantic phone calls we also realized that train and bus weren't really an option either. There was a moment where I resigned myself to staying in Britain for the weekend but then the Parisian on the bus with us told us that he was going to try and make the flight.

So we ran. We leaped from the bus and began sprinting through the terminal to security where an employee assured us that we could make this flight. After he waved us through to the front of the security line (which caused another older employee to heckle me the entire time) I made it to the other side of security with my shoes and my belt in my hands and my toothpaste confiscated by security. At this point I realized that Noah was already ahead of me and I had about 4 minutes till takeoff. So I started running. This time without the assistance of a belt or shoes. When I finally reached the gate the stewardess unhappily waved me through and I started down the stairs to the tarmac. At this point I would have liked to put my shoes on but a man then started yelling at me about holding the plane up. So I ran across the runway to the stairs leading up into the flight in my socks. When I entered the plane finally my feet were soaking wet. My shoes were in my hands. My pants were falling down because my belt was also in my hands. But I was grinning from ear to ear in sheer bliss at the fact that I had somehow miraculously just boarded this flight.

And then I arrived in Paris. And it was beautiful

We began by walking a lot and I think I took this on the edge of Luxembourg Gardens which I had wanted to visit because of what Hemingway wrote about them. 

Along our ambling we made it to the Louvre with its grand glass pyramids. The following weekend I went back to visit the Louvre and spend a few hours in the gallery. I also made it to the Musee D'Orsay, the Paris Dali Museum, and the Center Pompidou. While wandering around Saint Germaine de Prés on Sunday with my friend Emily we also stumbled upon a sign for the 'Museum of Everything' which turned out to be this strange and wonderful museum of mostly American folk art that was held in an empty apartment building. Below is a picture of people looking at the Mona Lisa which was possibly more interesting than the painting itself. All over the museum were signs leading to the Mona Lisa. This conveniently drew many of the other tourists away from the French paintings and sculpture I spent most of my time at. 

Below is the view down the street from Montmartre where the Dali museum was. I went there Saturday morning after meeting up for coffee and carrot cake with my good friend Ida who is studying in Paris. 

During my first weekend here I walked around Montmartre and went up to Sacré Couer (the church whose steeple is in this picture). From the front of the church I got a lovely view all over Paris (because Montmartre is the highest point in Paris). My friends are wandering around the foreground of this photo.

We also went to Pére Lachaise, which is a cemetery where a great collection of characters from history are buried such as Moliere, Peter Abelard, Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, and Jim Morrison are buried. The cemetery was quite interesting and many of the graves were beautiful. The weather was also nice as the photo shows. 

Paris was fantastic in so many ways. The food I ate there was especially great. I had the best apple tart, pan au chocolat, baguettes, escargot, duck confit, macaroons and falafel sandwiches that I've ever had in my life. The apple tart at Poilane was especially great and . I cannot even quantify how good (and for the most part affordable) everything I ate was. 

I also really liked this statue that I found in the gardens outside the Louvre. I hope I return to Paris some day because it was so absolutely beautiful. 

Week 3 and an Expotition

In my third week I got a chance to go to Hampton Court, which was yet another exceptionally large house that British Royals lived in. I also made it to the Imperial War Museum, which had a great exhibit on British spies and a good tank collection. Wednesday I ate with friends in the cafeteria at the Indian YMCA. This was my third trip there and it was once again exceptionally cheap and amazingly good. 

Thursday night I saw the british electronic band Hot Chip with my friends Noah and Colin and had quite the grand time. Friday morning I woke up and went to the British Library to get a researcher card so I could make use of their collection for my class research project. However, by far the best part was getting to see the original scroll on which Jack Kerouac typed On the Road that was on display in the lobby.

I spent most of my Saturday in classic UChicago style alone in my room reading. It was really productive but not particularly fun. So in response to my dreary saturday I made a celebratory adventure to Hartfield in Southern England where A.A. Milne, the author of the Winnie the Pooh stories, lived. Winnie the Pooh was of great importance to my childhood and I have fond memories of my Great Uncle reading the stories at family reunions when I was growing up. So at the behest of my mother I took a train and then a bus to Hartfield, which was in the middle of nowhere (not to say the middle of nowhere in rural england wasn't beautiful). 

Once in Hartfield I made my way to the Pooh Corner store where I was able to pick up a map to guide me on my "expotition" to the Poohsticks bridge which was about two miles away down a small road and through some fields and a forest. 

Thankfully the path was reasonably well marked because I was really not interested in getting lost by myself in rural England. The only real downside to the otherwise wonderful walk was how muddy the path was. 

The path actually involved going through a few fields with horses and sheep in them. This caught me off guard and I really thought I had made a wrong turn but it turned out paths through fields of livestock are just a thing here. 

After a somewhat long and very muddy trek I arrived at the Poohsticks bridge that is mentioned in Milne's stories. For those of you who are not aware poohsticks is an extremely competitive game that involves dropping sticks on the upstream side of the bridge and trying to get your stick to pass downstream of the bridge first. 

Since I made the trek alone I dropped at poohstick in for my mother who taught me this favorite game that I'll always love. After winning said game of poohsticks against myself I made my way back towards London. 

The beginning of my fourth week was characterized by a lot of reading, a failed gallery trip in which I learned that most art galleries are closed on Monday, and finding a great Somalian restaurant. Notably, religious somalis were not a fan of our BYOB attempt. 

Manors and Houses and Wales oh my.

I woke up rather unhappily at 630 am after going to sleep at 230 am for no legitimately good reason other than the fact that Noah and I got exceptionally motivated and made all of our travel arrangements for our trips to Paris, Florence, and Barcelona. After drudging my way to the lobby (coffee in hand, thank god) we eventually set off with the rest of our classmates on a tour bus going west through Britain. We first stopped at Stone Henge, which is exceptionally old, mysterious and large.

And also full of a great number of tourists who are fascinated by oldness, mysteriousness and largeness of it.

Then we stopped at Montacute house (which I wrote a paper on last week) that belonged to the Phelips family at some point before one of their relatives gambled away the family fortune. Now it belongs to the National Trust. The driveway was my favorite part (whatever that says for the house). 

I then found myself in Salisbury Cathedral which had this curious little plaque commemorating the men of Salisbury who had fought in the Burma campaign. This plaque seemed to be a small monument to the way in which empire infiltrated the English identity.

The church was rather pretty also.

From there we made our way on the bus to Tintern Abbey in Wales and after a long and tiresome discussion of a Wordsworth named for the site we all got do a little exploring around the Abbey.

We then ventured to another house of which I no longer remember the name. It was not a particularly striking house and this staircase was by far the nicest thing about it. 

Then we went to this house which I was exceptionally skeptical of since it looked like it could fall down at any moment. See how it looks like parts of it are bending? They are. The stone roof is slowly destroying the house because the upper floors were not properly aligned for structural support. 

After that we went to Chatsworth, which the exceptionally large manor house of the Duke of Devonshire who also still ives there some parts of the year. This place was astoundingly large and covered in gold. The art collection was amazing and they even had an original Da Vinci drawing. I really appreciated the collections of modern ceramic art displayed around the house. It was a bit overwhelming but the gardens definitely helped temper the excess of gaudy decoration.

Just to give you a sense of the grandeur.

After that we made our way back to London ambling through the countryside in our bus. 

The second week of London

As I've lived a second week in London it is becoming clear that this is a city which is extremely alive. London is a city in which you cannot escape finding something interesting. I am constantly assaulted by the sheer amount of life that is teeming in the streets of London. Last week I emerged onto Trafalgar square from the National Gallery to find a Malaysian Cultural festival. Again, later that week I walked out of my apartment building only to find the Petticoat Lane market was stationed between me and the tube station.

My good friend Alex Pinelli was able to come visit me during his fall break from UVa. After meeting him in my lobby and leading him to the beigel shop down brick lane (best value on a bagel with lox that I've ever seen). We then took to exploring and went on a walk that lasted for many miles and had us traverse all the way to Westminster along the south bank of the Thames and from there to Buckingham Palace where we found a parade going along

After that we ended up going on a rather roundabout journey for fish and chips (which we eventually found at Golden Union) before taking the long, but exceptionally nice, walk back to my building. After relaxing a bit we went out to a curry place renowned on the internet called Tayyabs just a bit east and south of Brick Lane. The food was amazing and we ate for about ten pounds so it was quite the deal. It was the first time I'd ever been served a naan with meat inside and that is certainly a new favorite for me. Waiting for a table in the restaurant (because I was dumb and failed to call ahead) was a painful aromatic experience as I desperately looked on at others receiving their food. The payoff of my own meal of lamb with dal was completely worth it though. 

The next day Alex and I made our way through Brick Lane's sunday market and I acquired some excellent burmese chicken in coconut curry before heading over to the London Eye. The London Eye (which is this fantastically large ferris wheel on the Thames) gave an amazing view of the city that really allowed me to have perspectives on London I would never have seen otherwise. While a tourist trap and a little pricey it was definitely worthwhile. 

Alex and I hung out a bit more Monday and went out to a local pub before I saw him off on Tuesday morning. Later in the week I got a chance to spend a good deal of time in the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery (both of which I thoroughly enjoyed, especially the impressionist collection in the National Gallery which had some of my favorite Van Gogh's I've ever seen). 

The first week living in London

I moved into my suite that I share with my friend Noah in London a week ago. It's been somewhat overwhelming and definitely exciting moving into a new city in a foreign country. Most of my struggles thus far have been focuses around the fact that where I live (in the financial district) lacks normal things like a place to buy towels. But I'm figuring it out step by step.

Since I only have class for 12 hours a week I've been trying to use my free time to see as much of London as I can. Thus far I've made it to  The Tate Britain, which was really quite interesting.

This was probably my favorite painting I saw there. 

I've since also made it to the Tate Modern, which is in this very imposing old power station but has a great collection and some very good new art along with a few Dali's I liked. 

Beyond that I've been trying to see regular London things like Buckingham Palace (I got to see the changing of the guard on accident while wandering around the other day also). 

There are also a wealth of outdoor markets that I keep running across. The Spitalfields Market is only a block from my building and Brick Lane which sets up a grand shop of food vendors, antiques and vintage clothing on the weekends is only a few more blocks away.

 I also walked through the Columbia Road Flower Market with some classmates. When I told my mother about it later she reminded me that my last immigrant relative, a florist who came from England to the US in 1900, would probably have been found there. 

Today, after another meal in the cafeteria of the Indian YMCA (a most excellent culinary find), I went and took a tour of the houses of parliament. Below is a picture of Westminster Hall where Charles I was tried and state funerals are held. The concept that this building is almost a thousand years old is astounding to me since I come from a place where something that is 400 years old is extremely rare. 

My initial explorations have only made me more excited to keep adventuring in London. I have yet to find an equivalent to Harper reading room (I seem to have read 3 Shakespeare plays this week) but for now I guess the view from my room will have to do. 

Leaving Ireland begin London

I woke up bright and early in Globetrotters hostel in Dublin to gather my things in the dark and set off westward through the rain towards the National Museum at Collins Barracks. Along the way I passed through this entire street of vegetable and fruit sellers who had giant crates full of food sitting out along the street. As I progressed and the rain got worse I stopped in at a cafe for coffee and a scone where I was met by complete and utter confusion from the woman at the register when I tried to acquire a recommendation for my order. I eventually made it to the museum (which was fabulous as seen below).

When I got there, being myself, I spent a number of hours looking at antique firearms and exhibits related to the Irish war of Independence and the Irish Civil War. These post-colonial conflicts have always been of interest to me because seldom do people remember that Ireland, so very close to Britain itself, was a colony. More importantly the Irish was of Independence marked the first true guerilla nationalist campaign or people's war. 

After sadly leaving the museum because I needed to catch my flight I met up with Noah and took a bus to the Dublin airport. After another lovely bout with Ryan Air (the only time I have ever felt an airline was my enemy and would be trying to charge extra things on me at any moment) we landed at London Gatwick. We made our way via van, tube, and bus back to the barge for one last evening before moving in. 

Ireland Day 6 and 7

We arrived in Clifden at around 1pm after a beautiful bus ride through the western Irish countryside during which I spent most of my time chatting with the two Australian girls sitting behind me. When we got there I began my quest for the perfect Irish wool sweater, which I eventually acquired the next morning (see below).

After checking into our hostel with a man who was exceptionally strange we decided to begin what turned out to be a 15 mile walk around the irish coast. 

We started out along the Clifden harbor and progressively ventured closer to the Atlantic

As we went along and got farther away we eventually got so far that it made more sense to make a loop back to Clifden instead of turning around. 

We had originally been searching for this, what seemed at times mythical, viewing area where I eventually sat down for a few minutes before continuing onwards along the coast. 

After a long bit of walking and a few shortcuts, which had me really questioning whether or not I knew where I was, we made it back into Clifden. Upon arrival I got what was one of the tastiest seafood meals I've had in years at this great restaurant called Mitchell's where most of the other diners seemed to be french for some reason. I carefully devoured the haddock and mussels trying not to let my hunger, the cold, or how tired I was from walking ruin the quality of the meal that was in front of me. 

We ended the evening in a nice pub in Clifden (after leaving the first place we walked into where someone was playing a Green Day cover to a mostly empty bar). There were a few teenage guys playing an irish drum, a fiddle, and this strange accordion like instrument that you had to blow into. The music was great and there was this excellent old fellow who on various occasions stopped the music to give a speech about the glory of Guinness or to begin dancing. 

The next morning we woke up and had a traditional Irish breakfast at Walsh's cafe next door to the hostel. The view was incredible and the black pudding wasn't too bad either. 

After breakfast and perusing a few art galleries (it was the week of the Clifden arts festival) we bid Clifden farewell and got on a bus back to Galway. In Galway we got a chance to go to the Galway museum and grab a last sandwich for the road at McCambridges before catching our train to Dublin. 

By the time we got off the train at Hueston station Dublin was starting to feel familiar. We rode the tram back to the Globetrotters hostel where we had been a week before. After depositing our bags we wandered our way down south of Temple Bar to a pub called the Stags Head. I had a really lively and fun conversation about Irish history with the bartender and he also gave me some recommendations for clubs in London. 

After a last pint of Guinness in Ireland we wandered through the Dublin twilight one last time back to the hostel.